Reps want UTME registration deadline extended

The House of Representatives on Tuesday called for the extension of the deadline for the 2017 registration of Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The house mandated its Committee on Tertiary Education and Services to liaise with the Joint Matriculation and Admission Board (JAMB) to ensure that the extension call was honoured.

This emanated from the adoption of a motion by Rep. Damburam Nuhu (Kano–APC).

In the motion, Nuhu called for one-month extension on the exercise, saying that it would create additional time for more prospective applicants to register for the examination.

He said that the slow process of the registration frustrated some applicants from registering.

According to him, some of the approved centres are registering 250 applicants at a time and most of them are not spacious and do not have adequate computers.

“Some of them have naked wires exposed and are haphazardly arranged on ordinary planks, thus lacking in safety requirement in case of an emergency,’’ Nuhu said.

He said that out of over 1.5 million secondary school students expected to register for the examination, only 600, 000 were able to register for the exercise two weeks into the one month period allotted to it.

He urged JAMB to specify requirements, including safety measures, which qualified any centre to participate in the conduct of the UTME computer-based test.

The lawmaker also stated the need for the house to invite the JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, to explain the proficiency of the computer-based process of registration for applicants in rural areas.

The Committee is expected to carry out the assignment within one week.